ORA-00911: invalid character using multiple select statements

Question

I am getting an ORA-00911: invalid character error when trying to execute 2 select statements using ODP.NET.
cmd.CommandText = "select sysdate from dual;select sysdate from dual;";
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandType = System.Data.CommandType.Text;
conn.Open();
OracleDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
This works in SQL server but for some reason it appears this does not work in Oracle?
If this is the case what is a vaiable workaround? Wrapping the 2 statements in a transaction?
Seems strange that you can't return multiple result sets using in-line sql statements.

Answer 1

Oracle doesn't support passing multiple statements like that, and this is unrelated to ODP.NET.
SQL> select * from emp;select * from dept;
select * from emp;select * from dept
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00911: invalid character
You could do it via an anonymous block and ref cursors though if you dont want to do it via a stored procedure..
using System;
using System.Data;
using Oracle.DataAccess.Client;
using Oracle.DataAccess.Types;
public class test
public static void Main()
    using (OracleConnection con = new OracleConnection("data source=orcl;user id=scott;password=tiger;"))
        con.Open();
        string strSql = "begin open :refcur1 for select * from emp;" +
            "open :refcur2 for select * from dept;" +
            "open :refcur3 for select * from salgrade;end;";
        using (OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand(strSql, con))
            cmd.Parameters.Add("refcur1", OracleDbType.RefCursor, ParameterDirection.Output);
            cmd.Parameters.Add("refcur2", OracleDbType.RefCursor, ParameterDirection.Output);
            cmd.Parameters.Add("refcur3", OracleDbType.RefCursor, ParameterDirection.Output);
            OracleDataAdapter da = new OracleDataAdapter(cmd);
            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            da.Fill(ds);
            cmd.Parameters["refcur1"].Dispose();
            cmd.Parameters["refcur2"].Dispose();
            cmd.Parameters["refcur3"].Dispose();
            foreach (DataTable dt in ds.Tables)
                Console.WriteLine("\nProcessing {0} resultset...", dt.ToString());
                foreach (DataRow row in dt.Rows)
                    Console.WriteLine("column 1: {0}", row[0]);
}Hope it helps,
Greg